In news much bigger than the state budget on Thursday, the U.S. men’s soccer team lost to Germany in the 2014 World Cup.

Gov. Chris Christie, right in the middle of a pitched battle with Democrats in the Legislature over taxes, pension payments and other spending, took time out to watch the game. A picture the governor posted on his Instagram account confirmed his television habit.

That 1-0 loss was bad news, right? Not really. The U.S. team still made it to the knockout round, where it will live to play at least one more match.

So the U.S. team won by losing. Go, team.

Winning by losing is an interesting concept not much seen in other areas of competition. You really can’t win by losing in tennis, for example. And it certainly isn’t a staple in the strategy of politicians.

But this year in Trenton is different, and winning by losing just might be the result of the madness.

Take, for example, the public worker unions’ loss in court Wednesday of the initial part of its challenge to the governor?s decision to short the pension payment in both the current fiscal year and the next, which will begin in two days.

“If you look at the way the executive order (that called for the suspension of the pension payment) was written, he was put between a rock and a hard place,” Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson said of Christie.

That seems like a clear loss, but maybe not. The unions will probably get another shot because Jacobson didn’t rule on whether the governor had the right to cut the payment in the next fiscal year. While Democrats have passed a budget to include the payment, Christie may very well strike that payment with a line-item veto and send the matter back to court again.

Jacobson seemed sympathetic to the governor’s plight this fiscal year, but she may not be so forgiving the next time. The Democrats, after all, provided a way to make the payment. That method may not be to Christie’s liking, but that would not be the judge’s concern. Her ruling will likely be on whether the payment is owed by law and whether there could be a reasonable effort to make it.

It’s hard to argue there is no way to make the payment when you veto the funding for it.

Unions might still win even though they lost.

What about those Democrats? It looks like they might lose, too. Christie is poised for the fourth time to veto a proposed increase in taxes on millionaires in the state. He’ll probably line-item veto a number of spending items in the budget, and we’ll have a state budget close to what Christie wanted in the first place.

Hold onto that thought, though, because some of that World Cup logic may be making its way toward the Statehouse.

For four years now, Democrats have argued for an increase in taxes on millionaires. For four years, Christie has resisted, claiming in part that a better economy would deliver the revenues anyway and any tax on the rich would have an ill effect on that recovery.

Well, the economy is still sputtering along, and, while the jobless rate has dropped, New Jersey’s job creation record is mixed. The Democrats can argue that Christie’s method is not really working. The knockout round of Jersey politics may not start soon, but in 2017 (the next gubernatorial election year), unless things pick up, the fight over increased revenues will probably favor Democrats, who have a natural electoral advantage anyway. Eight years of Christie-nomics may seem like a few too many by then.

Then there’s Christie. Let’s face it, the governor only likes to win by winning. That all-in mentality has paid off in many battles, but his biggest fight will come in whatever bid he mounts for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. A mediocre economy and a state in fiscal disarray will not help that effort.

But what if he lost one battle? What if the Democrats win on the budget this year? What if the fiscal situation stabilizes? What if the predicted exodus of millionaires doesn’t occur? Would Christie win by losing?